Huntsville, Ala. (January 19, 2001) The American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Washington D.C., serving 66,500 AIA members worldwide, has chosen Sirsi Corporation's Unicorn Library Management System to automate its corporate library. According to Kimberly Allen, managing director of the AIA Knowledge Center, AIA chose Unicorn not only because of SIRSI's innovative and stable reputation, but also because of SIRSI's Hyperion Digital Media Archive system.
Each year, 37,000 users receive information and materials from the library, primarily on a remote basis. These materials record the founding and evolution of architecture in America. The library's print collection includes 40,000 titles, 3,000 rare books, and 450 periodical titles, specializing in subject areas such as architectural style and construction. “After evaluating various systems for the flexibility to meet our current and future needs, ease of use, and a user-friendly interface, our search committee overwhelmingly selected SIRSI,” Allen said.
“Since 1857, when AIA established the first U.S. architectural library opened to the public, a primary goal of the library has been to improve access to our members,” Allen noted. “That's why we are so excited about offering Unicorn with Web access to our users. As a major source of information on architectural practice and the profession in the U.S, the AIA library will now, with Unicorn, have the technology to provide the best in service to its members. Because most of our users are scattered throughout the country, they will be pleased to have online access to our catalog,” Allen explained.
SIRSI, the leader in library technology, is a privately held company founded in 1979, with headquarters in Huntsville, Ala, USA, offices in major U.S. cities, and subsidiaries in Australia, Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, the Peoples Republic of China, and the United Kingdom. SIRSI provides products and services that help libraries of all types and sizes serve their users with the industry's most complete library management system, plus innovative Internet and digital media solutions for libraries.
